Tom Cary is The Telegraph's Formula One Correspondent. You can follow him on Twitter @tomcary_tel

Even a thriller in Valencia won't knock the football off its perch – but the F1's still worth watching

Let's not kid ourselves. The nation's sporting eyes will be fixed almost exclusively on Bloemfontein on Sunday afternoon. Win, lose or draw against Germany, England's football fortunes will be the only story in town. Even a third successive one-two for Hamilton and Button in Valencia would be unlikely to make much of an impression on the Monday morning papers…

That is not to say the European Grand Prix is without merit as a spectacle, though. On the contrary, from humble beginnings (Bahrain) this season has got better and better; the racing more exciting, the technical nuances more intriguing, the human drama more compelling.

After the race in Canada – where there were an unprecedented 60 overtaking moves thanks to the high tyre wear and wildly differing strategies – team principals were queuing up to say how brilliant it all was.

"If you were going to write the tyre rules for how you wanted races to be, they would be like Canada," said Lotus technical chief Mike Gascoyne. "You had changing strategies, overtaking and lots of excitement. It was exactly what F1 needs, and it has proved that the argument for one tyre being very marginable is very strong."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner agreed, adding that tyre wear is now proving to be the single most important factor in exciting races. "There was this myth of aerodynamics being the root of all evil – but in Canada you could quite clear see tyres have a much bigger influence on car being able to race each other," Horner said. "In fact, you could say now it has a bigger influence than perhaps aero does."

And McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh concluded there was little wrong with the current regulations. "Lots of people want to write negative things, but we've now had seven fantastic races," he said [Bahrain being the eighth].

"In Turkey, after 40 laps, you had four cars split by three seconds – and there was a lot of pressure there. Then we had Canada. In F1 you are not supposed to follow closely and you cannot overtake – but Canada was a great race. We've been very fortunate and have had some classic motor racing this year."

While I agree with Whitmarsh, his revisionism is slightly irritating. He was one of the guys championing changes to the regs after just one race! I remember speaking with him in Australia where he said: "I am personally worried by the prospect of the racing at the moment but I respect others who say 'Hang on, there has only been one race'. Hopefully we have a stunning race this weekend. If, we do, then the likelihood of pushing through changes is reduced.

"But if we have a less than stunning race then the likelihood of pushing through changes is enhanced. Personally I want a stunning race and changes."

To be fair to Whitmarsh, what he advocated in the wake of Bahrain was more marginal tyres and mandating two pit stops in order to mix up the strategies – and Canada was a good advert for both those proposals.

But his reference to people "wanting to write negative things" is a bit rich. We were only reporting what drivers and team principals were saying at the time. Schumacher, Button, Alonso, Whitmarsh – everyone was moaning about the racing after Bahrain and worrying that the season could turn into an expensive bore. Now that the racing is brilliant, they criticise the press for having the gall to report their comments..

Thankfully those fears have long since disappeared up the exhaust of the most exciting and open title race in years. Valencia has not provided the most exciting of spectacles in its first two seasons, but this weekend promises to be interesting whatever happens. The development war is now in full swing; Red Bull are trialling their F-duct, Ferrari and a number of other teams have the new Red Bull-style low exhaust configuration with McLaren's version not ready until Silverston, all the main contenders are within a few points of each other…

Will Ferrari and/or Red Bull eat into the McLaren's speed advantage? Will Vettel and Webber run each other off the road again? Maybe Button and Hamilton will come to blows? Now that might give Sunday's sports editors something to chew on.